First of all, I cannot even begin to articulate my appreciation for all of our active military and veterans out there. May God bless each and every one of you, as well as your families. Let us never forget.

To kick off this Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I decided to do something a little bit different. We had Pizza Dough and a Flat Iron Steak in the freezer and we decided to take both out last night. I remembered seeing Grand Scale's post about the "million dollar cheese steak" that included a sauce made out of Blue Cheese, Heavy Cream and White Wine. That stuck with me. So tonight, I put a twist on his idea and whipped this up...Cheese Steak Calzones with a Blue Cheese and Wine Sauce.

First up was the Flat Iron Steak. I seasoned it with Truffled Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper.

While I waited for the Steak to rest, I sautéed some Portobello Mushrooms and Onions to go inside the Calzones as well.

Then came the Blue Cheese and Wine Sauce concoction. It was killer! I started with a Sauce Pan with EVOO that was heated to medium to medium high. Then added in one big crushed clove of fresh Garlic. Let that get happy for a minute or two, then added in 2 TBSP of Pinot Grigio. Let that simmer for a couple minutes, then added in 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream. Once that came up to a simmer, I seasoned it with some S&P. Then I added 6 ounces of Crumbled Blue Cheese and 1/3 cup freshly grated Mozzarella and stirred until it mostly melted. At this point, I took the pot off the burner and allowed the Cheese mixture to cool to room temp before adding it to the Calzone.

Brushed the top of the Calzones with an Egg Wash mixture before placing them on the grill.

And right before they were finished, I sprinkled on some Truffled Sea Salt to finish them off.

These were freaking amazing and will be repeated! My wife said she could have eaten the Blue Cheese Sauce with a spoon. I'd have to agree.

But are you sure those are portobellos? They look like cremini mushrooms to me - which are the normal-sized brown mushrooms. The growers let some of the cremini grow to full size, and those are what get sold as portobellos.

There's a small mushroom farm just one road away and I visit the guy monthly (in part because I've got some spare space in an outbuilding I'm looking at converting to growing them myself in a couple of years). His portobellos are "Chunky-Soup-can-sized" or bigger before he ships them to market. The reason why I was asking is that he says you can apparently get 2 or 3 batches of cremini (brown) mushrooms in the time it takes for a flat to grow to portobello size.

Unlike propane, you'll never wake up scorched and naked in another county because you mishandled a bag of briquettes.

Sorry 'bout that CanadaBBQGuy, I didn't realize there was a difference between the 'shrooms. I saw "Bella" and assumed it meant "portobello"... Wasn't trying to make them sound cooler. Just reading the package.

sroach, I use the parchment paper for the convenience of sliding them on the stone without having to use a pizza peel.

Another amazing looking calzone Dyal! Your calzone pictures Over the years were my inspiration for finally getting around to making my own calzones. I just posted pictures earlier today. Mine came out good, but I still consider you the calzone Jedi Master. I do have a question for you though: what temperature did you cook your calzones at? The reason I ask is the use of parchment paper. My calzones cooked at 450° and where that's so close the magic 451° where paper burns I was curious about the temperature. You certainly wouldn't want your calzones with wood paper smoke flavor.

I noticed in your close-up picture of the flank steak grilling, that you were using the cast-iron Grill grate with the narrow side of the bars up. I've started using it with the wide side up for about the last month or so and you get some great sear marks I can tell you. My gas grill came with dual sided CI grates like that. The only difference was that flat side had a slightly rounded surface to it as opposed to the dead flat one that the BGE version has. Sears said in the directions that the wide side was for the best sear and the narrow side was for use with more delicate foods like fish where you were more concerned about stickage than you were getting the greatest year possible. As a connoisseur of CHGM's I figured you might want to know.

Once again great looking calzones, but I've come to expect that from you.Jim

Thx y'all! Jim, I did these calzones at around 435 dome temp the entire time. I usually use a higher temp, but this was the 5th or 6th time I used this same load of lump, so I was running low on fuel. That's good to know about the back side of the CI grate. I've always used the narrow side up.